It is very helpful to know how long your menstrual cycle
lasts. This will help you understand when you are most likely
to ovulate. If you don’t know how long your cycle is,
start keeping track of it over the next few months. For example,
if the length of your cycles for the past three months was
28 days, 29 days and 30 days, you would add those numbers
together and divide them by 3. You would find the average
length of your cycle to be 29 days.
Most women ovulate near the middle of their menstrual cycle.
Doctors generally agree that ovulation occurs 13 to 14 days
before your period starts. To see an example of this, look
at the calendar above. If you count backwards thirteen to
fourteen days from the 30th, you will see that the fertile
period occurs around the 16th and 17th.
It is important to remember to count 13 to 14 days
backward from the start of your period to determine the
time you are most likely to ovulate. |
| Determining your
cycle length
 The
first thing you need to do is determine the length
of your menstrual cycle. Your complete menstrual cycle
is the number of days from the first day of your period
(the first day your bleeding starts) to the day just
before your period starts again.
In the calendar shown, your period started on the
1st and your next period started on the 30th. This
means that your cycle length was 29 days. Again, your
cycle length is determined by counting the number of
days including the first day of bleeding, to the last
day of your cycle, just before the bleeding starts
again.
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